This invention relates generally to improvements in beverage makers or coffee brewers. More specifically, it relates to an improved device for brewing beverages using a microwave oven.
Obviously, devices for heating water and brewing beverages such as coffee or tea have been available for many years. However, with advent of the microwave oven and its now extensive use, a device or a method which takes full advantage of the microwave oven to rapidly heat water is desirable and useful.
Coffee, for instance, is most commonly made with a so-called percolator or by the drip method. In a perculator, water at the bottom of a pot is heated to rise upwardly in a tube and then fall downwardly through a perforated basket containing ground coffee. One type of perculator is shown in Hagel U.S. Pat. No. 1,754,553. A drip coffee maker is shown in the Keramati et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,356,382. These and other patents such as the patent to Pouget Re. No. 17,077, Herring No. 1,655,014, Robbiati No. 2,594,132 and Beverett No. 3,696,733 all show coffee makers where water in a reservoir is heated, using either electric resistance heaters or by placing them on top of a stove, to then rise upwardly in a tube and fall through a basket or a filter containing the ground coffee.
One attempt with which the applicant is familiar to utilize a microwave oven to make coffee is a product sold under the name "Nordic Ware" which is of the perculator type. That is, there is a basket supported on a tube containing ground coffee that has a base resting in the bottom of a pot so that as the water is heated it will rise upwardly through the tube to circulate downwardly through the coffee in the basket. However, it is believed that a number of advantages over the foregoing discussed devices can be achieved by the invention herein disclosed.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide a novel beverage maker to be used in microwave ovens.
It is another object of this invention to provide a novel beverage maker which can be used in microwave ovens to brew a beverage such as coffee and is capable of maintaining the coffee at an acceptable serving temperature for a period of time without continuously heating the coffee and thus destroying its flavor.
A still further object of this invention is to provide a novel beverage maker which is compact and capable of brewing relatively small amounts of beverage as desired.